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What are the Anthill Cool Company Awards?

The Cool Company Awards were launched in 2006 as a way for Anthill to acknowledge and celebrate Australian organisations that are doing things differently to bring about positive change. Cool Companies stay one step ahead of the rest. They breed leaders who are rule-makers and rule-breakers. They are trend-setters in attitude and action. Quite simply, they are … cool! More.

Chieftain Communications

So, Frucor was rolling out a new energy drink called Baron Samedi and wanted to make a big splash. Frucor’s advertising agency concocted a voodoo-experience campaign in which “priestesses” set up “voodoo shrines” at locations in NSW, VIC and QLD and offered Samedi to those who dared to try it. More than 42,000 cases of the drink were distributed.

The campaign was a signature work of Chieftain Communications, an experimental-marketing agency that rose from the ashes of the global economic meltdown in 2009 and, here in 2010, wins the Commercial Creativity category of Anthill’s Cool Company Awards. Chieftain also was a finalist in the Micro Business category.

Principal Steve Fontanot was working for the Australian office of a European agency when it shut down the branch. Several clients rushed to his side. One said: “We have a national campaign that needs to go live in four weeks!” Chieftain was founded within days, with many of those clients migrating to the new agency.

Chieftain specialises in creating brand experiences and communication strategies that target the Australian youth market. It pushes boundaries in order to create and execute innovative connections between brands and their consumers.

“After close to two years in operation, we still refer to the agency’s attitude as start-up. We have an enormous entrepreneurial flair,” Fontanot said.

“Event companies are competitors, but typically they don’t offer marketing or strategy, and are simply executional,” Fontanot said. “Chieftain provides marketing, strategy, youth insights and execution. We work with agencies or directly with brands.”

Clients include Telstra (Chieftain spent the last year in a campaign in Japan for the telcom), DDB, V Energy Drink, Starlight Children’s Foundation, Dunlop, Naked and RACV. For the latter, Chieftain confronted RACV’s fusty reputation and created a youth-oriented roadside service service campaign called free2go.

Chieftain has a “Environment Policy” that all staff must follow for recycling, reducing paper use, etc.

Chieftain’s main marketing strategy is simple, Fontanot said: “Do bloody great work. With the industry we are in, it’s all about taking your creativity to the next level. After creating successful campaigns, we ensure that we PR the socks off of it and use it as a platform to gain new clients.”

And what makes Chieftain Communications cool? “We are proud to have been a part in changing an industry as old as advertising,” Fontanot said. “We now have an industry that puts experiential marketing at the heart of most campaigns. All day, every day, we get to come up with fun, creative and inspiring ways for brands to speak to Australia’s youth. It’s always a cool day to be at Chieftain.”

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